Poetry: Clase de poesía al aire libre

To start out the unit on poetry my CT had students listen to us read as many poems as possible. She also expose students to as many poetry books as they could get their hands on. She suggested reading and reading some more…

This week students started to write their own. I am so amazed at the enthusiasm of the students to write their own poems. Some students have started to fill pages and pages of poems.

On one of the sunny days we had this week she thought it would be a great idea to start the lesson outside. By taking student outside she made the lesson of capturing ordinary moments and making them extraordinary, a very real experience.

This is what we wrote on a little board outside at the top of a hill:

Parjarito pajarito pio pio pio

Abeja, abeja bzz bzz bzz

Arboles, arboles swoosh swoosh

Gusano, gusano ______

Los arboles verdes

Como el pasto en que camino

Hojas secas

En el pasto

Quemadas por el sol ardiente

Poem

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

I never understood poems (it must have been a language thing). My sister loved The Road Not Taken. Ayers mentions poetry as a tool to get to know students and if children understand it it can be a great tool.